MTV- Company case study

Mtv company case study from Georgie Brough

Inspiration for album covers

I am looking at a few different album covers to try and get some inspiration for the creation of our own album cover to represent our music video.

From personal experience I can define how an album cover is used to attract buyers due to the artwork on the front cover, whether it’s simple or just effective, as Music, and CD’s sell.

‘An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially-released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10″ and 12″ 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12″ LPs, sets of 45 rpm records (either in several connected sleeves or a box), or the front-facing panel of a CD package, and, increasingly, the primary image accompanying a digital download of the album, or of its individual tracks.

The cover serves three main purposes:

• To advertise and identify the contents of the music product.
• To convey the artistic aspirations of the original artists
• In reproductions of the artwork, to serve as a primary image in the promotional efforts surrounding the product, as an identifiable image associated with it’

Portrait album covers are generally popular with highly successful solo artists as it makes them stand out as an isolated figure compared to bands. It also establishes their presence, and also draws the attention to purchasers as their face tends the cover the whole size of the CD cover. Extreme close up photographs tend to be effective due to the amount of detail, lighting, shadows that can be created from the face, which makes them strong and bold.

An image based cover tends to centrally focus on the photograph rather than the typography, as its bold effectiveness is enough to draw attention to the albums purchasers, generally increasing cd sales in the process. Image based album covers can be individual and quirky, but can create a powerful response if they’re presented dramatically, without the additional effects such as manipulation for example. A few photography based album covers sometimes prefer to use the band name or album title, as the image generally speaks for itself. 

Kate Bush- Hounds of love

On the front of the hounds of love album by Kate Bush, they selected an elegant portrait photograph of Kate Bush, with warm feminine colours to entice audiences. It represents Kate as an artist and her genre and style. Its very dreamy and fantasy like. 
The back of the cover is also a portrait, which represents as very avaunt garde due to the choice of clothing. The  black and white choice makes it look very timeless and classic, appealing to many more generations. It also has all songs included on the album down the sides,sticking with the italic font, maintaining the theme.

 The inside of the album has a reflective CD with the album name, the rights and the songs included. This inside cover has another portrait, keeping consistent with the back of the CD.
Inside the booklet it has all the lyrics to every song, with portraits occurring throughout. It keeps with the black and white classic theme. It is all very dreamy and enchanting.

Planning- stylistic influences

Mise en-scene & stylistic influences (1) from Georgie Brough

Risk assessment form

Cultivation theory

Cultivation theory in its most basic form, suggests that television is responsible for shaping, or ‘cultivating’ viewers’ conceptions of social reality. The combined effect of massive television exposure by viewers over time subtly shapes the perception of social reality for individuals and, ultimately, for our culture as a whole. Gerbner argues that the mass media cultivate attitudes and values which are already present in a culture: the media maintain and propagate these values amongst members of a culture, thus binding it together. He has argued that television tends to cultivate middle-of-the- road political perspectives. Gerbner called this effect ‘mainstreaming’. Cultivation theorists distinguish between ‘first order’ effects (general beliefs about the everyday world, such as about the prevalence of violence) and ‘second order’ effects (specific attitudes, such as to law and order or to personal safety). There is also a distinction between two groups of television viewers: the heavy viewers and the light viewers. The focus is on ‘heavy viewers’. People who watch a lot of television are likely to be more influenced by the ways in which the world is framed by television programs than are individuals who watch less, especially regarding topics of which the viewer has little first-hand experience. Light viewers may have more sources of information than heavy viewers. ‘Resonance’ describes the intensified effect on the audience when what people see on television is what they have experienced in life. This double dose of the televised message tends to amplify the cultivation effect.

Here is a conceptual model that I found on a cultivation theory website.
When producing our music video we will bare the cultivation theory in mind only due to the fact we do not want people to be brain washed by what we are portraying. We want peoples cultures and ideals to be shaped from a number of factors, including what they think themselves.